Thursday, December 21, 2017

2018 Barihunk Calendar model Edwin Crossley-Mercer will be performing at Suntory Hall in Tokyo on December 22nd along with soprano Marina Monzó and Dmitry Korchak. Joined by the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra and The Little Singers of Tokyo chorus, they will perform holiday favorites, along with some greatest hits from opera. Tickets are available online.

On January 28th, he will find out if the album "Mademoiselle: Première Audience - Unknown Music Of Nadia Boulanger," which he perform on, will win the 2018 Grammy Award for Best Classical Compendium. He also recently released a recording of Lully's Alceste with Christophe Rousset and the Les Talens Lyriques. Early in 2018, he will be releasing two CD's, one with songs to texts by Oscar Wilde and another to texts by Cody Franchetti. The 80-minute Wilde song set will be premiered this summer in Paris.

If you want to catch him live in an opera, he'll be performing Leporello at the Municipal de Santiago in April with Levent Bakirci in the title role and bass-barihunk Solomon Howard as the Commendatore.In the summer, he heads to the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich for Haydn's Orlando Paladino.

Jason Duika from the 2018 Barihunks Calendar

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He is the first member of the Ensemble at Oper Frankfurt to have received the award. The ceremony will take place tonight in the Holzfoyer of Oper Frankfurt after the performance.

After today's performance, he has remaining shows on December 17, 20, 22 and January 1st. In between performances, he heads back to his native Ukraine for a holiday concert at the Lviv Opera House on December 24th, which includes works by Ukrainian composers, as well as Puccini, Bizet, Mozart and Saint-Saëns.

Jason Duika from 2018 Barihunks Calendar/Photo Book

ONLY 14 DAYS LEFT TO ORDER our 2018 Barihunks Calendar, which includes 20 of opera's sexiest men is now available for
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In response to reader demand, we've also added a Barihunks Photo Book
this year, which includes additional photos that don't appear in the
calendar. You can purchase that HERE. The New Year is approaching faster than you think.

Saturday, December 16, 2017

Beethoven remains the single most influential figure in the
history of Western music, having composed some of classical music's most lasting and popular pieces, including nine symphonies (in particular the Eroica, the 5th, 7th and 9th (with it's famous Ode to Joy), the opera Fidelio, Missa Solemnis, many of the greatest string quartets ever written (including the classic String Quartet No.14), five piano concertos (capped by the popular Piano Concerto No.5), Piano Sonata No.30, the Coriolan Overture, Violin Concerto in D, the Kreutzer Sonata and many more!

Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany on December 16, 1770. His father was a
court musician who had hopes of making money by exploiting his son as a
child prodigy. At the time, Vienna was the place where any German or Austrian musician
had to go to acquire a reputation, and it's where Beethoven landed, just
a year after Mozart's death.

Beethoven had previously visited Mozart in Vienna and had hoped to
study composition with him, but ended up studying with Haydn. Beethoven's music has become a testament to the human spirit in the face of cruel misfortune.

His 32 piano sonatas, which he wrote in bursts throughout his career,
experiment with form in all directions, using the full expressive range
of an instrument that was itself changing rapidly, growing louder and
with an ever greater range of notes.

Benjamin Appl sings "An der ferne Geliebte":

His songs have not gained the popularity that his other works attained, possibly because his emotions came out in the piano parts rather than the vocal lines. Nonetheless he left us the glorious An die ferne Geliebte song cycle, the six Gellert settings, folksong arrangements and, perhaps his greatest song, Adelaide.

Adelaide was composed in 1794 or 1795 and was the composer's favorite song, which he played in an 1815 concert in celebration of the Empress of Russia's birthday.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau sings Adelaide:

Adelaide is structured like a sonata in miniature, with a middle passage that goes through several keys. The first verse of the setting, for example, in which the poet describes wandering in a garden during a spring night, is tranquil; in the second, when he describes seeing the face of his beloved in the grandeur of nature, the music is far more stately; in the third, the piano vividly depicts both rushing waves and the song of the nightingales. Throughout, however, the overall tone, one of ecstatic contemplation, is the same. One of the song's most important unifying elements is the tender repetition of the name "Adelaide."

The quartet from Fidelio:

Fidelio, Beethoven's only opera, dates from the heady days of revolutionary idealism, but its cry for freedom has echoed through the centuries. The opera premiered at the Theater an der Wien in November
1805, only days after Napoleon and his army had occupied Vienna. Fidelio seemed
to have all the ingredients for success, but the initial performances were a
disaster, attended by sparse crowds, which included the composer’s
friends and a handful of stray French soldiers. It is best remembered for the Prisoners' Chorus ("O welche Lust" - "O what a joy"), an ode to freedom sung by a chorus of political prisoners, a glorious vocal quartet, Fidelio's magnificent aria "Abscheulicher! Wo eilst du hin?" and Florestan's aria "Gott! Welch Dunkel hier!," which he sings from deep inside a dark dungeon.

Walter Berry sings Ha! Welch ein augenblick:

Fortunately, Beethoven also left us the sinister aria "Ha! Welch ein augenblick," sung by the evil bass-baritone Don Pizarro, who orders that Florestan be killed.

ONLY 15 DAYS LEFT TO ORDER our 2018 Barihunks Calendar, which includes 20 of opera's sexiest men is now available for
purchase HERE.
In response to reader demand, we've also added a Barihunks Photo Book
this year, which includes additional photos that don't appear in the
calendar. You can purchase that HERE. The New Year is approaching faster than you think.

Friday, December 15, 2017

Christopher Maltman is currently performing the role of Mandryka in Richard Strauss' Arabella, which will be live-streamed worldwide. The performance from the Wiener Staatsoper begins at 7 PM (2 PM EST/11 AM PST). He'll be joined in the cast by Kurt Rydl as Graf Waldner, Anna Gabler as Arabella, Chen Reiss as Zdenka and Benjamin Bruns as Matteo.

Arabella was the sixth and final collaboration between Strauss and his famous librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It was written during the collapse of the Weimar Republic and given its premiere in Dresden in the first months of the Third Reich. The story revolves around Arabella, a poor little rich girl, looking for the ideal man in Vienna during the declining years of the Austro-Hungarian empire. That man turns out to be Mandryka, but along the way one meets some pretty horrendous family members.

Renée Fleming and Thomas Hampson in the finale to Arabella:

Tickets to view the performance can be purchased on the Wiener Staatsoper website. After this production, the company will live stream Mozart's Die
Zauberflöte, Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus and a full cycle of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen.

Maltman has been on a whirlwind of late, making three role debuts in 46 days, which included thirteen performances in 3 cities, and sung in three different languages. It started on October 30th with Donizeti's Lucia di Lammermoor at the Royal Opera House in London, and then Frankfurt in November for Verdi's Les Vêpres Sicilienne and finally Arabella in Vienna.

Jason Duika in 2018 Barihunks Photo Book

ONLY 16 DAYS LEFT TO ORDER our 2018 Barihunks Calendar, which includes 20 of opera's sexiest men is now available for
purchase HERE.
In response to reader demand, we've also added a Barihunks Photo Book
this year, which includes additional photos that don't appear in the
calendar. You can purchase that HERE. The New Year is approaching faster than you think.

Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Barihunks Craig Verm and Michael Adams will alternate the role of Guglielmo in Jonathan Miller’s production of Mozart's Così fan tutte at the Seattle Opera. They'll be joined by Kevin Burdette as Don Alfonso and Laura Tatulescu as Despina for all performances, while Ginger Costa-Jackson and Hanna Hipp will alternate as Dorabella, Marina Costa-Jackson and Marjukka Tepponen alternate as Fiordiligi, and Tuomas Katajala and Ben Bliss alternate as Ferrando. Verm will perform on January 13, 17, 24 and 27, while Adams will perform on January 14, 20 and 26. Tickets are available online.

After the run, Verm will stay with the Seattle Opera to perform Claudio in Mozart's Beatrice & Benedict, which runs from February 24-March 10. Michael Adams will open tomorrow as the Pilot in Rachel Portman's The Little Prince at the Washington National Opera, which runs from December 14-17. Tickets and additional cast information is available online. The opera is directed by Francesca Zambello.

Derek Chester and Marco Vassalli in the 2018 Barihunks Calendar/Photo Book

ONLY 18 DAYS LEFT TO ORDER our 2018 Barihunks Calendar, which includes 20 of opera's sexiest men is now available for
purchase HERE.
In response to reader demand, we've also added a Barihunks Photo Book
this year, which includes additional photos that don't appear in the
calendar. You can purchase that HERE. The New Year is approaching faster than you think.

Gyula Orendt will will be replaced by fellow barihunk Edward Nelson in Ópera de Oviedo's upcoming performances of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande. He'll be joined by Andrew Foster-Williams as Golaud, Anne-Catherine Gillet as Mélisande, Maxim Kuzmin-Karavaev as Arkel, Yulia Mennibaeva as Geneviève and Eleonora de la Peña as Yniold. The opera runs from January 28-February 3.

Edward Nelson and Ingeborg Gilebo in the Tower Scene from Pellées:

Nelson made his European debut at the Norwegian National Opera on April 7th as a replacement in the title role of the same opera. The performance was the first time that the company had performed the opera.

Pelléas et Mélisande was the composer’s only opera and is based
on the Nobel Prize winner Maurice Maeterlinck’s play of the same name.
The story is about lost love and forbidden relationships.

Thomas Weinhappel and Sam Robert-Smith from the 2018 Barihunks Calendar/Photo Book

ONLY 18 DAYS LEFT TO ORDER our 2018 Barihunks Calendar, which includes 20 of opera's sexiest men is now available for
purchase HERE.
In response to reader demand, we've also added a Barihunks Photo Book
this year, which includes additional photos that don't appear in the
calendar. You can purchase that HERE. The New Year is approaching faster than you think.

Saturday, December 9, 2017

After about a dozen emails and messaging imploring us to check out Meyerbeer's Le Prophète at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, we finally got around to it, and were we ever pleased. Not only did it have a stage full of sexy, semi-clad men, but it starred one of our favorite barihunks, Seth Carico as the evil Count Oberthal. Seth Carico has emerged as one of opera's most exciting singing actors in the business and this performance is not to be missed.

Le Prophète at the Deutsche Oper

For those not familiar with the rarely performed 4 1/2 French Grand Opera, the story charts the rise and fall of the regime that installed the Protestant Anabaptist sect in the Westphalian city of Münster in 1535. Jean de Leyde, an innkeeper, leads the band of fundamentalists in an act of defiance against the despotic Catholic authorities. However, he soon realizes that the revolutionaries are as corrupt as the rulers they have displaced.

Gregory Kunde and an angel in Le Prophète

One thread running through Meyerbeer’s work is the corrupting effect of power. The only voice of reason is that of the women, the powerless, apolitical inhabitants of this world – headed by Jean’s mother Fidès, who warns her infatuated son to recant, proffering pure and total forgiveness in return.

There is one performance remaining on December 16 with the current cast. It then returns on January 4 and 7 with a different cast, including Australian barihunk Andrew Finden replacing Seth Carico as Count Oberthal.

ONLY 22 DAYS LEFT TO ORDER our 2018 Barihunks Calendar, which includes 20 of opera's sexiest men is now available for
purchase HERE.
In response to reader demand, we've also added a Barihunks Photo Book
this year, which includes additional photos that don't appear in the
calendar. You can purchase that HERE. The New Year is approaching faster than you think.

The National Semi-Finals concert will be held on Thursday, April 19, 2018 and the Grand Finals Concert will take place on Sunday, April 29, 2018 in New York City at the Metropolitan Opera House. Bertrand de Billy will conduct this year's concert.

Ethan Simpson will be making his movie debut as Cesar in an
upcoming film based on Anne Patchett’s New York Times best
selling Bel Canto starring Julianne Moore and Ken Watanabe.

In January 2018, Andrew Bogard will star as Papageno in Mozart's The Magic Flute at CoOPERAtive in Princeton, New Jersey.

In January 2018, Brent Michael Smith will sing Fafner in Wagner's Das Rheingold at the Academy of Vocal Arts.

ONLY 22 DAYS LEFT TO ORDER our 2018 Barihunks Calendar, which includes 20 of opera's sexiest men is now available for
purchase HERE.
In response to reader demand, we've also added a Barihunks Photo Book
this year, which includes additional photos that don't appear in the
calendar. You can purchase that HERE. The New Year is approaching faster than you think.

Thursday, December 7, 2017

Malte Roesner, who earlier
this year made his U.S. stage debut with West Edge Opera in Vicente Martín y
Soler's The Chastity Tree (see our post), as well as his U.S. concert debut,
is returning on December 10th for a recital at San Francisco's historic Palace
of the Legion of Honor. The concert is a collaboration with Opera Parallèle and
the museum.

A musicologist, as well as a singer,
Roesner helped put together the program, which centers around composers who had some
connection to the painters Gustav Klimt and Auguste Rodin. The two artists are
being featured at an exhibit at the Legion of Honor. The program also features
the rising young star, lyric soprano Amina Edris, as well as accompanist
Keisuke Nakagoshi. The innovative show quickly sold out and resulted in online
bartering for tickets and a demand for a second concert! (None has been
announced).

Roesner will be performing Hugo Wolf's
Michelangelo Songs, as well as pieces by Alexander von Zemlinsky and Hans
Pfitzner. Amina Edris will be performing works by Reynaldo Hahn, Alma Mahler,
Claude Debussy and Henri Duparc.

According to Roesner the paths of Klimt
and Rodin intersected in the 1898 Secession in Vienna and both of their most
famous pieces are titled "The Kiss."

According to his program notes, other
connections include:

Michelangelo
Buonarroti was one of Rodin's main role models. He traveled to Rome to
study him. Rodin said, "It is Michelangelo who has freed me from
academic sculpture."

Alma Mahler
was a close friend of Gustav Klimt and the 5 Lieder contain one song with
lyrics by Rainer Maria Rilke, who was Rodin's private
secretary.

Alexander von
Zemlinsky was a Viennese contemporary of Klimt's and together with Gustav
Mahler a competitor for Alma Schindler's (later Mahler-werfel) affection.
According to her diary and her autobiography Klimt was her first kiss and
Zemlinsky both her composition teacher and the man she experienced her
sexual awakening with, but ultimately she decided to marry Mahler, who was
20 years her senior.

In a scandal
over an artistic dispute, Debussy came out publicly as a supporter of
Rodin. Debussy and Klimt were both born and died the same
year.

If you're missing this concert, you may have a chance to see Roesner with Opera Parallèle during their 2018-19 season. We recommend that you buy early. Check out their current season online, which includes the world premiere of Marcus Shelby's Harriet's Spirit, as well as a double-bill of Jake Heggie's At the Statue of Venus and Leonard Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti.

Malte Roesner from the 2018 Barihunks Calendar

ONLY 24 DAYS LEFT TO ORDER our 2018 Barihunks Calendar, which includes 20 of opera's sexiest men is now available for
purchase HERE.
In response to reader demand, we've also added a Barihunks Photo Book
this year, which includes additional photos that don't appear in the
calendar. You can purchase that HERE. The New Year is approaching faster than you think.

Wednesday, December 6, 2017

American barihunk David Adam Moore, who just scored a huge triumph in Thomas Adés' The Exterminating Angel, is featured in a Kickstarter campaign for the book Complete Vocal Fitness: A Singer's Guide to Physical Training, Anatomy & Biomechanics. The book, authored by vocal coach Claudia Friedlander, offers the same tools that fitness trainers use to train elite athletes to assist singers in developing their instrument to perform at peak performance.

The book will be a guide on learning how the vocal instrument functions, offering descriptions of the fundamental components of vocal anatomy – laryngeal function, articulation and resonance – explaining their movements, their interaction with one another, and their integration with the anatomy of breathing and alignment. You can learn more about the book and Kickstarter campaign online.

David Adam Moore in the 2014 Barihunks Calendar

Moore has been a regularly featured singer on Barihunks and appeared in our 2012 and 2014 Barihunks Charity Calendars. He was also recently featured in The New Yorker, which included a picture by noted photographer Andres Serrano. Check it out here.

We have featured him in a number of classic, sexy baritone roles, including Joseph de Rocher in Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking, Stanley Kowalksi in Andre Previn's Streetcar Named Desire and his famous portrayal David T. Little's Soldier Songs.

Moore will next appear in the world premiere of David T. Little's electroacoustic song cycle Book of Dreams: Chapter Sand at the National Sawdust on December 17th. Tickets and additional information is online.

2018 Barihunks Calendar

ONLY 25 DAYS LEFT TO ORDER our 2018 Barihunks Calendar, which includes 20 of opera's sexiest men is now available for
purchase HERE.
In response to reader demand, we've also added a Barihunks Photo Book
this year, which includes additional photos that don't appear in the
calendar. You can purchase that HERE. The New Year is approaching faster than you think.

Tuesday, December 5, 2017

Advent is being celebrated in Berlin this year with 24 singers performing Schubert's Winterreise, with each performing a different song. Tenors, mezzo-sopranos and sopranos will all be represented, as well as 9 amazing baritones. They include 2018 Barihunks Calendar model Joa Helgesson, along with Julian Arsenault, Reuben Walker, Julien Ségol,Stephen Bronk, Seth Carico, Allen Boxer, Markus Brück and Jason Steigerwalt.

Joa Helgesson and Derek Chester from 2018 Barihunks Calendar/Photo Book

ONLY 26 DAYS LEFT TO ORDER our 2018 Barihunks Calendar, which includes 20 of opera's sexiest men is now available for
purchase HERE.
In response to reader demand, we've also added a Barihunks Photo Book
this year, which includes additional photos that don't appear in the
calendar. You can purchase that HERE. The New Year is approaching faster than you thin

Sunday, December 3, 2017

Our post on Edward Laurenson performing in The Rape of Lucretia prompted a reader to point out that Benjamin Britten's opera is also being performed in Lisbon with a singer who is new to us, André Baleiro. He'll be performing Tarquinius on December 5 and 10 at the Teatro Nacional de São Carlo.

He'll be joined by Christian Luján as Junius, Luís Rodrigues as Collatinusand Maria Luísa de Freitas in the title role.

André Baleiro began his musical and vocal studies at the age ten in Lisbon, Portugal. He completed his Bachelor in Choral Conducting at the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa before heading to Berlin to study Voice at the University of the Arts in Berlin.

André Baleiro performs the Das Lied International Song Competition:

He is a frequent collaborator with the Kammeroper München, where made his debut as Figaro in Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia. Some of his operatic experience includes Don Parmenione in Rossini's L’occasione fa il ladro at Teatro Pérez Galdós in Las Palmas, Conte Belfiore in Sarti's Fra due litiganti il terzo gode, and the Captain in Bohuslav Martinů's Les trois Souhaits at the Universität der Künste Berlin.

In 2012 he was awarded a scholarship by the Walter & Charlotte Hamel Foundation in Hamburg, and was sponsored by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon from 2012-2015.

He can next be seen in recital at the Museu Francisco Tavares Proença Jr. on December 13th. He'll be performing music by Joly Braga Santos, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Ruy Coelho, Caio Facó, Fernando Lopes-Graça, Luiz de Freitas Branco, Armando José Fernandes and Cláudio Carnevro. Tickets are available online.

ONLY 28 DAYS LEFT TO ORDER our 2018 Barihunks Calendar, which includes 20 of opera's sexiest men is now available for
purchase HERE.
In response to reader demand, we've also added a Barihunks Photo Book
this year, which includes additional photos that don't appear in the
calendar. You can purchase that HERE. The New Year is approaching faster than you think!

Saturday, December 2, 2017

The last we featured New Zealand barihunk Edward Laurenson three years ago, he was off to London to commence his Masters in Music studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He has now landed across the globe in California, where he's studying at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He has now studied on three continents in three years!

On December 8th and December 10th, he'll be performing Tarquinius in Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia at the Conservatory. He'll be joined by fellow barihunk Jorge Ruvalcaba as Junius, Brandon Bell as Collatinus, Molly Boggess as Lucretia, Esther Tonea as the Female Chorus, Ricky Garcia as the Male Chorus, Jessie Barnett as Bianca, and Meagan Rao as Lucia. [Click on the dates for tickets].

The fully-staged production is part of the Conservatory's thematic programming surrounding the institution's centennial celebrations for the 2017-18 season, which is comprised of 20th- and 21st-century repertoire.

Jorge Ruvalcaba (left and center), Edward Laurenson and Brandon Bell

Laurenson was an Emerging Artist with The Dame Malvina Major Foundation, as well as Vocal National Young Performer of the Year at Performing Arts
Competitions Association of New Zealand, won the Lieder prize at the New
Zealand Aria competition, won the Guildhall School of Music
& Drama Award, the Australian Opera Awards Committee’s
Sheila Prior Memorial Prize, the Phoebe Patrick Award and the David Harper
Award.

Mexican baritone Jorge Ruvalcaba is new to this site. He was the winner of the Coppel Prize VIII in the Concurso Internacional de Canto Sinaloa in 2016, the Edgar Mason Kneedler Memorial Prize Opera San Miguel 2015, won special prizes for best interpretation of Mozart and for the best interpretation of aria at the XIX Maritza Alemán Singing Contest. He has performed Marcello at Opera de Oazaca, the title role of Don Giovanni a the Escuela Superior de Música and Papageno at the Teatro Alameda.

ONLY 29 DAYS LEFT TO ORDER our 2018 Barihunks Calendar, which includes 20 of opera's sexiest men is now available for
purchase HERE.
In response to reader demand, we've also added a Barihunks Photo Book
this year, which includes additional photos that don't appear in the
calendar. You can purchase that HERE. The New Year is approaching faster than you think!

BARIHUNK BIRTHDAY MARCH 21

Marco Vassalli sings Tosti's "Marecchiare"

THE BARIHUNKS MISSION

1. To promote the baritone to bass voice range, especially emerging talent.2. To financially assist singers and promote opera through the sale of our calendar and tee shirts. 3. To make opera competitive with television and movies, by making it appealing to new audiences. 4. To promote good health and self-esteem. A great voice coupled with a healthy life-style prolongs careers.5. Keep opera positive! No bitchiness allowed! This industry is tough enough.

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DEFINITION OF A BARIHUNK

BARIHUNK: This site is dedicated to any hunk who sings in the baritone and bass/baritone range. Singers must be professional, semi-professional or serious students with real potential.